29. Isaiah Chapter Twenty-Nine
Isaiah Chapter 29 At the beginning of the last chapter Samaria was symbolized as a fading crown of flowers. Now the woe-judgment is pronounced against Jerusalem, symbolized as the hearth (i.e., altar) of God. Ariel may have its other meaning of "lion of God," but in Isaiah 31:9 the Lord is stated to have His fire and furnace (or hearth) there. Moreover in Ezekiel 43:15-16, Ariel is the altar-hearth of God (r.v. margin).
Let them continue their formal religion, their round of feasts and sacrifices (Isaiah 29:1). Judgment must come, and Ariel would become a veritable altar-hearth of slaughter and fiery indignation (Isaiah 29:2). National foes would reduce them to utter weakness (Isaiah 29:3-4). Yet deliverance is assured. All nations that rise against Zion must be brought to nought under the mighty hand of God (Isaiah 29:5-8).
Isaiah 29:9-16 contain a remonstrance against the condition of God’s people, and a description of the inevitable and terrible judgments to be inflicted upon them because of their apostasy, luxury and hardness of heart. In Isaiah 29:9 the prophet judicially bids them carry on in their perverseness: "Tarry ye [i.e., do as Lot did when he lingered in the doomed city] and wonder, take your pleasure [or, as in the margin, blind yourselves]. and be blind." That is, "go on in your heedless ways." The waywardness of the rulers, seers and people had brought upon them spiritual slumber and blindness. The revealed will of God had become like a sealed book or letter, so that even one who could understand writing could not open it, and when it was unsealed and handed to an illiterate man to read he had to refuse owing to his inability to make out the words (Isaiah 29:10-12).
Mere lip worship and external conformity while the heart was alienated, and all this the effects of "the precept of men," must result in the loss of the wisdom of the wise and the hiding of the understanding of the intelligent (Isaiah 29:13-14). The same state of things prevailed when Christ was on earth (Matthew 15:3; Mark 7:6).
How far into the dark the backslider can go is revealed in Isaiah 29:15. Isaiah 29:16 really begins with an exclamation of sorrow: "Alas for your perversity!" They had in their ideas turned upside down the relation between the creature and the Creator: "Shall the potter be counted as clay, that the thing made should say of him that made it, He made me not, or the thing framed say of Him that framed it, He hath no understanding?" (r.v.). They thought they had no need of Jehovah, they could manage for themselves, as if a pot should inform its maker and owner that it could itself do all that was required of it. Such is the preposterous attitude of all who seek to act independently of God. But God would expose their folly. He Himself would turn things upside down (the paragraph begins at Isaiah 19:17, not Isaiah 29:18; Isaiah 29:18 explains Isaiah 29:17). The Lebanon forest would be changed into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field would be regarded as a forest. The deaf would hear the words of the book, in contrast to the sinners mentioned in Isaiah 29:11-12, and the blind would see out of obscurity and darkness. This and what follows bear reference to the coming Millennial reign of Christ. The meek will joy in Jehovah, the poor will rejoice in Christ, "the Holy One of Israel." So it is now. It is the meek and the poor, those among believers who are conscious of spiritual need, who have the greatest joy in the Lord. For the Holy Spirit ministers the fullness of Christ especially to such (see Isaiah 61:1; Zephaniah 3:12; Matthew 5:3-5). In the day to come "the terrible one," the Man of Sin, will have been brought to nought, the scoffer destroyed, plotters of evil cut off, those who act unrighteously and pervert justice (Isaiah 29:19-21).
Jehovah’s covenant relationship with Abraham as his Redeemer is made the basis of the blessings promised to the seed of Jacob (Isaiah 29:22). His house, freed from shame and terror, will rejoice in being surrounded by their redeemed children, and "sanctify" (i.e., pay due and reverent regard to) the Name of Jehovah and Christ as "the Holy One of Jacob" and, unlike the rebels against whom Isaiah was protesting, will "fear the God of Israel." Instead of erring in spirit they will come to understanding and instead of murmuring they will rejoice in receiving instruction.